The Real Story behind a self-portrait painting with ear bandaged of Vincent Van Gogh

Posted On: 11:24:32 - 18/10/2015 - Viewed: 1046

He's known as the tortured genius who cut off his own ear with a razor blade in a fit of lunacy after he had a row with Gauguin one evening shortly before Christmas 1888.

He's known as the tortured genius who cut off his own ear with a razor blade in a fit of lunacy after he had a row with Gauguin one evening shortly before Christmas 1888.

But two German historians now claim the French artist Paul Gauguin swiped Van Gogh's ear with a sword in a row outside a brothel. The historians say that the real version of events has never surfaced because the two men both kept a "pact of silence" for Gauguin avoid prosecution. After this case , Gauguin left to Tahiti and had never seen Van Gogh later.

This painting, which was created within two weeks of that breakdown, is most certainly the calm after the storm. He takes a quiet and detached look at himself and expresses a feeling of renewed hope through his bright colors and simplified drawing. A clue to the origin of this bold style is found in the Japanese woodblock print on the wall behind him.

Most of the paintings for which Van Gogh is famous were painted during the three years when his depression was at its most acute. Then in 1890, at the age of 37 and having sold just one painting, Van Gogh shot himself.